Javid Afsari Rad

Javid Afsari Rad was born in Isfahan, central Iran, in 1965. His first mentor on his main instrument Santur was musician Saeed Naeemi Manesh. At 16, was introduced to Radif, the Persian classical music repertoire, by the masters Parviz Meshkatian and Faramarz Payvar. His studies led him to Norway, where he later graduated from the University of Oslo in the field of Musicology. During the years Javid Afsari Rad has performed solo in world music festivals in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, and he has done ensemble works withPandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, a classicist on the Indian flute Bansuri who has made a conscious effort to reach out and expand the audience for classical Indian music. Gathering the 10 member group of Combonations in 2000, he combined music and musicians from Iran, India, China, Morocco, Senegal, Gambia and Brazil in a fireworks of a concert show that toured Norway, Sweden and India. They released their debut album the year after. Ensemble Caravan, with musicians from Iran and India,united musical traditions from various parts of Iran with Indian music. In 2002 Javid Afsari Rad conceived and composed Asiatic Caravan, featuring musicians and dancers from Iran, China and India, the audio highlights of whichwas released as Golestan. During his residence in Norwayhe has also composed various music for film and theatre.
The internationally higly acclaimed Persian percussionensemble Zarbang explores various rhythms of Iranian music in combination with percussive and melodic instrumentsfrom other cultures. In addition to Javid Afsari Radthe members are Pejman Hadadi, Mehrdad Arabi, Behnam Samani, Reza Samani, and Morshed Mehregan. Zarbang was founded in 1996 with the aim ofassembling some of the finest percussionists from the Persian music scene, introducing Persian percussion instruments to an internationalaudience. Zarbang has toured the US, Canada and Europe several times, and this fall they will do an extensive tour in Europe with Ustad Hossein Alizadeh.Forming the Rumi Ensemble in 2007 with a classicalstring quintet and some of the foremost musicians on the Iranian contemporary music scene, he performed his own commission work for the new Norwegian Scene of traditional music and dance. The ensemble will record their music September 08, and will be available for touring in the period after.
In 2010 Javid released his solo Ablum titeld Afarinesh (creation) containing both repertoire from the vast Radif tradition of Iranian classical music and also some of his own compositions influenced by his colorful and rich personalhistory, going from the east to the west, catching ideas from both cultural spheres.